Title Goes Here: Foreword – Riddled with Arrows 1.1

“…and I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating plantations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe.” – Pablo Neruda.

Spring Equinox, 2017

There’s a reason we do this. There’s something magic, mystical, transcendent in writing: piecing words together like mosaic, like puzzles—the aha of discovering just the right way to say a thing. The agony of not saying it. The compulsion to describe what we saw, or thought—what we survived. The compilation of our histories, futures. Our maybes. The yes of poems. The joy of language, of conveyance. The taste of telling on our tongue.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Riddled with Arrows. With this launch we aimed to create a haven for writers and writer lovers—a place for unabashed celebration of the process and product of writing as art. We put out a call and you answered—hello! We’re so glad you’re here.

In these pages you will find metafiction and metapoems: writing that is self-aware— alive even (and hungry). You’ll find stories about stories—tragic, comic, fantastical—rapturous verse about verse, misery for poetry that falls short. You will find wonder, reflection, homecoming—or, perhaps, the start of a new adventure. Are you ready?

Pull up a chair, put on your reading glasses, pick up a pen. Nudge your muse. Put a pot on, or pour out a drink—it’s fine. We’re writers, we get it. Whatever gets your juices flowing…